Gonçalo Garcia
Trovador medieval

Biographical Note:

Son of the troubadour Dom Garcia Mendes d’Eixo and brother of the also troubadour Dom Fernão Garcia Esgaravunha, Dom Gonçalo belonged to one of the most important Portuguese lineages of the time, the Sousa’s. Having been born probably in the beginnings os the 13th century, little is known about his life until the middle of the century, although it’s possible, as José Augusto Pizarro suggests1, that between 1229 and 1231 he was in Catalonia, at the service of prince Dom Pedro Sanches, to whose house he belonged. But it’s with the ending of the Portuguese civil war and the ascent to the throne of Afonso III (whose side the Sousa took) that his path is better known. From that moment on he becomes, in fact, one of the most important figures of the Portuguese court, being the holder of several tenures and assuming, in 1255, the important role of alferes-mor (commander in chief) of the kingdom. He marries in 1273 with Leonor Afonso, bastard daughter of Afonso III, bearing, from then on, the title of Count. The couple didn’t have, however, any descendants. He dies in 1284, leaving behind a vast wealth, later the object of great litigation between his numerous heirs, a situation that was at the root of first inquiries of Dom Dinis, called upon to arbitrate the dispute.

References

1 Pizarro, José Augusto (1999), Linhagens medievais portuguesas: genealogias e estratégias 1279-1325, vol. I, Porto, Centro de Estudos de Genealogia, Heráldica e História da Família da Universidade Moderna, p. 220.
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